Bullying Bosses

16 Nov 2018 at 18:18 // under Personal Work

In one of my previous jobs, I did not particularly get on with one of my supervisors. This is not that surprising and to be honest, it would probably be surprising if I had gotten on with every supervisor I have encountered.

This particular supervisor was not my direct line manager but was part of the management team, it was just a formality on paper who anyone's official line manager was. I found this supervisor to be particularly manipulative. What he would say changed significantly depending on the audience. In public he would encourage some behaviours such as being open about mistakes, but his response to these behaviours was not consistent with someone who genuinely wanted to see these behaviours.

As I said, I didn't get on with him but I was able to get on with my job all the same. His boss was a different story. I really liked being around him and from what I could see he was consistent with what he said.

I have recently found out that I wasn't seeing the whole picture.

My supervisor (and the rest of the people in that team) were getting bullied by the main boss. While I only saw the friendly guy, the supervisors were on the receiving end of a lot of pressure. The pressure was high enough that the superior I disliked left the company shortly after I did.

I am not sure if I was just too small a fry to attract any critical attention from the main boss or some other reason I was unaware of that side of him.

The revelation has caused me to re-evaluate a lot of my perceptions and judgments of people.

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